Why a School for Gang Members?

* Why should a special school in San Clemente (“New School Called Solution to Gang Problem,” Dec. 20) be set up for gang members, rewarding them for chronic truancy, behavioral problems and drug use? It is unconscionable to provide them with an 8-1 student-teacher ratio and all the attendant costs of a new school, just so they can attend a school in their gang territory.

The taxpayers of San Clemente, as well as the great majority of dedicated students in classes of 37 or 38 without adequate resources, deserve an accounting from the district.

Appeasement will no more solve gang problems than putting bars on our windows stops crime. As long as our society continues to reward the non-productive at the expense of the productive and refuses to protect the honest citizens against their criminal aggressors, we will be unable to reverse this downward spiral our country faces both economically and morally.

PETE SNETSINGER

Irvine

* Re: Times article, “New School Called Solution to Gang Problem,” Dec. 20):

SOLUTION! I have never been so angry! The solution to a gang problem is to open another school outside of a rival gang’s turf to keep the two gangs separated? What about ridding the school of gangs? What about reform school?

Why do we continue to cater to these hoodlums? There’s a lot of gang stuff going on there. Why? Shouldn’t someone from the school board answer some questions and justify this expense? Shouldn’t someone please stop this insanity?

DEANNA CAVITT

Lake Forest